The Business Case for Sustainability

In this chapter, I discuss how companies address sustainability challenges. First, the chapter begins with examples of different corporate approaches to taking responsibility for sustainability. Second, I explore how companies are viewed from the stakeholder perspective, so how others outside the company view the managers’ motivations for engaging in corporate responsibility. Although most companies are still motivated by risk reduction and/or marketing in their sustainability work, this chapter will reframe the motivations into something more positive—a business opportunity. Four cases will be presented, Nike, Arthur Andersen, Volkswagen, and companies involved in the Rana Plaza tragedy, and the companies’ approaches relative to the following strategies will be discussed: reacting, defending, accommodating, and, finally, a proactive approach in which a business’s profitability is anchored in sustainability. The chapter will conclude with reflections on business models for sustainability.